Delfuenso said, ‘There’s a problem with Kansas City.’
Reacher said, ‘What kind of a problem?’
‘Poor performance.’
‘How poor?’
‘They’re getting people killed.’
Delfuenso ran it down for them. She spoke for ten minutes straight. The central region was always busy. There were valuable targets within its jurisdiction. Important civilian infrastructure, and military establishments, including factory sites. There was always terrorist chatter, too, both domestic and foreign, on the Internet, some of which was aimed at that infrastructure and those establishments and factories. Most of which was fantasy dreaming or empty boasts or idle wouldn’t-that-be-cool speculation. But some of it was real. Enough of it to worry about, anyway.
So the Kansas City boys went proactive, and got into a sequence of four undercover penetrations. They got agents inside four separate targets. The operations were textbook smooth at the beginning. Then they fell apart. None of them produced intelligence. Two of them produced dead undercover agents.
But still. Notwithstanding. The central region was always busy. The Internet chatter never let up. Then one day there was a new voice. It talked about liquid measure of some kind. Gallons, hundreds of gallons, thousands of gallons. With a regular emphasis on Nebraska’s water table. No one knew what any of it meant. No one could decipher any specific intent. But the chatter intensified daily. Thousands of gallons, hundreds of thousands, millions of gallons, and eventually tens of millions.
So a fifth undercover operation was planned. The new voice was contacted by a lone federal dissident entirely invented by Kansas City. The federal dissident offered to join forces with the new voice and help. Background questions were asked, and answers were invented. Bona fides were established. After a long and cautious delay the new voice agreed to meet with the federal dissident. And so the operation came slowly to life.
But at the same time an operation-within-an-operation had been planned by the Hoover Building. Like spying on the spies. Under the guise of a routine higher-level review it had been suggested that Kansas City bring in an agent entirely unknown in the Midwest. For the undercover position. In theory, for extra safety and security. In reality, the Hoover Building wanted a guaranteed reliable man at the heart of the operation. The name they put forward was Special Agent Donald McQueen, most recently of the San Diego field office.
And as a backstop and as an on-the-ground observer they moved Karen Delfuenso from the main counterterrorism unit in D.C. They moved her in secret. The whole nine yards, like witness protection. She rented a house. She got a job. Her kid came with her and enrolled in school.
‘That’s a big deal,’ Sorenson said. ‘Were you happy with that?’
‘Happy enough,’ Delfuenso said. ‘You know how it is. We go where we’re told. And I like moving around. I want Lucy to see something of the world.’
‘Did she know why you were moving?’
‘Not specifically. Only generically. She knows I have a gun and a badge. But she doesn’t ask questions. She’s used to it.’
‘But she could have blown your cover. She could have talked in school.’
‘And said what? Mommy’s got a gun? Every mommy in Nebraska has a gun. Or mommy’s a secret agent? All kids make up stories like that. It’s expected. Especially when their mommy is really a cocktail waitress, half naked from the waist up all night long.’
Then Delfuenso went on with the story. McQueen made contact early on. He played it slow and careful and built up trust and credibility. The new voice turned out to be a medium-sized group of white Americans in an uneasy alliance with a medium-sized group of foreigners from the Middle East. The group called itself Wadiah. Its leader was a man with a code name of his own, and so far McQueen had been denied access to him. The foreigners from the Middle East were thought to be Syrians.
‘What’s their aim?’ Reacher asked.
‘We don’t know yet,’ Delfuenso said.
‘That’s a weird ethnic mixture.’
‘I agree.’
‘Is McQueen going to be OK?’
‘That depends on whether you’re a glass-half-full type of guy, or a glass-half-empty. They lost two out of four so far. So on the face of it his odds are about fifty-fifty.’
‘Not good.’
‘Which is why some big cheese in a suit was all burdened down with worries.’
‘And that’s without him having to explain what happened to King.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Delfuenso said.
Sorenson made tea with a plug-in kettle from a cupboard and water from the bathroom. She brought it over on a tray. Reacher thanked her but looked at Delfuenso and asked, ‘Why did you do all that blinking in the car?’
Delfuenso took her tea and asked back, ‘Did I have you fooled?’
‘Totally. I thought you were a random victim. Brave and smart, for sure, but regular-person brave and smart, not law enforcement.’
‘And that’s exactly what I needed you to think. McQueen knew who I was, obviously, but King didn’t. So I had to play a part for him. I had to play a part all night, in fact, because it was pretty obvious I was going to end up face to face with either Wadiah or the Kansas City FBI. And neither one of them could be allowed to know who I was.’
‘I get that. I know you had to act a part. But you didn’t have to blink.’
‘My aim was to get out of there as fast as I could. The sooner the better. By any means available. So I thought if I enlisted you I might get out quicker. You looked like a capable guy. I thought you might get the chance to stage something along the way. But you didn’t. So sure enough I ended up face to face with the Kansas City boys, who put me in here, because I played my part so well they think I’m nobody.’
‘So what really happened last night?’
‘You saw most of it.’
‘But not all of it. And I didn’t understand any of it. And I’m interested in the conversation you had with McQueen after he shot King in the heart. You must have had at least half an hour alone with him, before you were picked up.’
‘Closer to forty minutes. And it wasn’t McQueen who shot King in the heart. He passed me his gun around the seat. I told you different because I was still playing the part back then. Also I made up all that stuff about screaming and wailing.’
‘So what really happened last night?’
‘You tell me.’
Reacher shrugged.
‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think either King or McQueen was carrying the knife. Too big for a suit pocket. There was nothing in their hands. I suppose one of them could have had it strapped to his forearm, but that seems unlikely. I think the other guy had it. And I think he was always planning to use it. He was unzipping his coat as he walked into the bunker.’
‘You spoke to the eyewitness.’
‘I’m sure he’ll deny it. He’s following the rules. For the free beer.’
Delfuenso said, ‘These things are always co-productions. King and McQueen went on behalf of Wadiah to meet with some other guy appearing on behalf of some other group. Funding, probably, or some other kind of cooperation. Or logistics. Or supply. It was supposed to be a love-in. The plan was King and McQueen should get a ride there, and then the new guy would take them onward to his HQ. Like a ritual dance. But it went to rat shit immediately. The new guy started shouting something at them and then he pulled out a knife and tried to kill them. McQueen disarmed him.’
‘And broke his arm in the process.’
‘Did he?’
Sorenson said, ‘The medical examiner told us. At lunchtime today.’
Reacher said, ‘And then what?’
Delfuenso said, ‘And then McQueen killed the guy. In self defence. Almost a reflex.’
